By five o’clock in the morning all was done, and La Chicot lay with meekly folded hands under clean white linen—the heavy lids closed for ever on the once lovely eyes, the raven hair parted on the classic brow.
‘She’s the handsomest corpse I’ve laid out for the last ten years,’ said the nurse, ‘and I think she does me credit. If you’ve got a kettle on the bile, mum, and can give me a cup of tea, I shall be thankful for it; and I think a teaspoonful of sperrits in it would do me good. I’ve been up all night with a fractious pauper in the small-pox ward.’
‘Oh, lor!’ cried Mrs. Evitt, with an alarmed countenance.
‘You’ve been vaccinated, of course, mum,’ said the nurse cheerfully. ‘You don’t belong to none of them radical anti-vaccinationists, I’m sure. And as to catching complaints of that kind, mum, it’s only your pore-spirited, nervous people as does it. I never have no pity for such weak mortals. I look down on ’em too much.’
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHAT THE DIAMONDS WERE WORTH.
The inquest was held at noon next day. The news of the murder had spread far and wide already, and there was a crowd gathered round the house in Cibber Street all the morning, much to Mrs. Evitt’s aggravation. The newspaper reporters forced their way into her house in defiance of her protests, and finding her slow to answer their questions, got hold of Mr. Desrolles, who was very ready to talk and to drink with every comer.
George Gerard called at the house in Cibber Street between nine and ten o’clock. He had heard of the murder on his way from the Blackfriars Road, where he was now living as assistant to a general practitioner, to the hospital where he was still attending the clinical lectures. He had heard an exaggerated version of the event, and came expecting to find a case of murder and suicide, the husband stretched lifeless beside the wife he had sacrificed to his jealous fury.
It was not without some difficulty that he got permission to enter the room where the dead woman lay. The hospital nurse had been put in charge of that chamber by the police, and Gerard was obliged to enforce his arguments with a half-crown, which he could ill afford, before the lady’s conscientious scruples were quieted, and she gave him the key of the room.
He went in with the nurse, and stayed for about a quarter of an hour, engaged in a careful and thoughtful examination of the wound. It was a curious wound. La Chicot’s throat had not been cut, in the common acceptation of the phrase. The blow that had slain her was a deep stab; a violent thrust with some sharp, thin, and narrow instrument, which had pierced the hollow of her neck, and penetrated in a slanting direction to the lungs.